The present invention relates to a centrifuge equipped with a rotor bearing a plurality of swinging buckets, each hung on two pivots, and having sector-shaped inserts secured in place axially on the rotor, the inserts having radially disposed supporting walls aligned substantially vertically, which receive the thrust of the pivots, and whose radially outer part serves in the operating state as a centrifugal force-supporting surface, two pivots being associated with each sector-shaped insert.
A centrifuge of this kind is disclosed in DE Pat. No. 17 82 602. It is a centrifuge with buckets which are suspended on resilient pivots, also called holding bolts. These pivots are journaled in sector-shaped inserts having three struts extending radially from the rotor hub, which rest at their radially outer portion on a ring. Each of these inserts bears two pivots, one of these pivots being associated with a left-hand bucket and the other pivot with a right-hand bucket adjoining the insert. The individual inserts are divided into an upper and a lower half, as seen in the axial direction, with projections on the end toward the rotor hub which clip onto a cylindrical mounting on the rotor hub. The two halves of the inserts can be bolted together. In operation, the centrifuge buckets suspended at the pivots swing horizontally outward and their bottom engages the supporting ring as the rotatory speed becomes greater and the centrifugal force thus increases. The individual inserts are closed each by a cover plate which simultaneously locks the resilient pivots. To prevent the inserts and the centrifuge buckets suspended between these inserts from turning when the centrifuge is started up, the inserts must be joined nonrotatably to the supporting ring at least in the area of the latter. A centrifuge very similar in construction to the one described above is described in DE OS No. 27 49 785. The differences from the centrifuge in DE Pat. No. 17 82 602 are that the pivots on which the centrifuge buckets hang are rigid and the inserts and the buckets are surrounded by a so-called wind pot which reduces the noise when the centrifuge is running. The inserts thrust radially outwardly against the wall, which accordingly must have the same stability as a supporting ring.
The two centrifuges described above have it in common that the inserts must be secured in their position in the rotor, i.e., with respect to the supporting ring in the case of the one type of centrifuge, and with respect to the wind pot in the case of the other type. If the inserts shift even only slightly, the result may be that a centrifuge bucket will become jammed between two inserts thus imperiling proper operation. This is especially the case with a centrifuge like the one disclosed in DE OS No. 27 49 785, because throughout the entire centrifuging process, i.e., even under maximum load, all of the forces are transferred to the inserts, while a system in accordance with DE Pat. No. 17 82 602 transmits the centrifugal forces to the inserts only until the centrifuge buckets are fully swung out and their bottom is in contact with the supporting ring. For the assembly of the centrifuge, for example after the wind pot or supporting ring has been cleaned, the inserts have to be bolted back into the rotor and their spacing from one another must be adjusted in order to assure trouble-free operation.
Setting out from this state of the art, the purpose of the present invention is to devise a centrifuge with swinging buckets which is characterized by its simple construction and which does not require any adjustment of the individual components to one another.